Tokugawa Ieyasu to
Matsumae Yoshihiro, first
daimyō of the
Matsumae Domain, granting the Domain exclusivity as intermediaries in trade with the people of
Ezo (
Hokkaido Museum) "opened the door" to Japan. In the summer of 1779, a merchant from
Yakutsk by the name of
Pavel Lebedev-Lastochkin arrived in Ezo with a small expedition. He managed to reach a
basho, or official Matsumae
trading post for the Ainu, at
Akkeshi on the easternmost point of the island. Here he was told no trade was possible except via the Ainu, and he and his crew sailed back to their exploratory base on
Urup, an uninhabited island in the
Kuril Islands to overwinter. However,
Sakurajima erupted, and a related massive earthquake struck Hokkaidō. On January 19 1780, a
tsunami deposited his ship, the
Natalia, a quarter-mile inland. The survivors returned to Russian-controlled
Kamchatka by
Aleutian-style sea kayaks. He ceased further attempts to return to the Kurils and Hokkaido after
Catherine the Great declared that the Ainu no longer had to pay the
yasak, the
Imperial fur tribute. The expanding Yamato colony was pushing the Ainu into the Kurils from their
earlier territories in Sakhalin and Yezo (now Hokkaidō). in 1751.
Ainu bringing gifts. The Matsumae clan fief maintained extensive contacts with the Yezo Ainu and held exclusive rights to trade with their communities and to guarantee the security of Yamato interests there. Relations between the Matsumae and the Ainu were sometimes hostile, demonstrating that their power was not absolute in the region. In 1669, what began as a dispute over resources between rival Ainu clans escalated into a rebellion against Matsumae control. It lasted until 1672, when
Shakushain's revolt was finally put down. The last serious Ainu rebellion was the
Menashi-Kunashir rebellion in 1789. In 1790,
Kakizaki Hakyō painted
Ishūretsuzō, a series of portraits of Ainu chiefs, to prove to the Mainland populace that the Matsumae were capable of controlling the northern borders and the Ainu. The 12 paintings of Ainu chiefs were exhibited in Kyoto in 1791. At roughly the same time, in 1789, a
Swedish Finn professor,
Erik Laxmann, of the
Russian Academy of Sciences, came across several Japanese castaways in
Irkutsk. Like others before them, Russian sailors found them in the
Aleutian Islands off the coast of
Alaska and asked to be returned to Japan, but were instead transported to
Saint Petersburg. Laxman saw their plight as an opportunity to work towards the opening of Japan, and suggested this to Catherine the Great, who agreed. In 1791, she appointed the professor's son,
Adam Laxman, to command a voyage to repatriate the castaways and open discussions towards a trade agreement. The expedition reached Hokkaidō in October 1792, and the Matsumae were hospitable. The Russians were allowed to spend the winter, and documents about them were sent to the
bakufu in Edo. However, Professor Laxman insisted on bringing the castaways to Edo and said that he would sail there himself, even against the Shōgun's wishes. The bakufu sent envoys to the Matsumae, who requested that the Russians travel overland to Matsumae town. Sensing a trap, they refused and were eventually permitted to enter
Hakodate by sea with a Japanese escort. They were assigned a guest house near
Matsumae Castle and officially allowed to maintain their own customs. They did not have to deny Christianity despite
a Shogunate ban on the religion, nor were they forced to remove their boots indoors, and they did not have to bow to the Shōgun's envoys. The envoys gave them three swords and a hundred bags of rice, but also informed them that the Shōgun's rules remained unchangeable. Foreigners could trade only at
Nagasaki in western
Kyushu, and only if they came unarmed. All other ships would be subject to seizure. Laxman had been pardoned of this because he was returning castaways. However, Laxman refused to relinquish them until he was given something in writing answering his trade request. The envoys returned three days later with a document restating the rules regarding trade at Nagasaki and the laws against the practice of Christianity. The Russians never established any regular system of trade at Nagasaki, and historians still disagree as to whether the document given to Professor Laxman was an invitation to trade or an evasive maneuver by the shogunate. The Russian expedition led by
Adam Johann von Krusenstern and
Nikolai Rezanov stayed for six months in the port of Nagasaki in 1804–1805, failing to establish diplomatic and trade relations with Japan. '' on the clothing of the standing figure in background looks like four diamond-shapes turned sideways. , a Matsumae lord of the late
Edo period. Since the Matsumae land was a march or borderland, the remainder of Yezo essentially became an Ainu reservation. Although Japanese influence and control over the Ainu gradually grew stronger over the centuries, at that time they were largely left to their own devices, and the shogunate did not regard their lands as Japanese territory. It was only during the
Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century that the march was dissolved, and Hokkaidō was formally
annexed and renamed. ==Kakizaki family heads==